Lying Eyes
by Roses Roses And More Roses
Summary: I guess every form of refuge has it's price.
1. Chapter 1

Lying Eyes

"Get _away _from me!" She shrieked as she fixed her skirt.

"Please." He drawled. "As if I need your skin tainting mine." He redid his tie lazily.

She shot him a filthy look as she tumbled inelegantly out of the broom closet they were in. "And wipe the gloss off of your neck." She spat.

He laughed as he watched her walk away.

* * *

><p>"Harry, wait! Give me a second!" She hobbled up to him.<p>

"Why are you limping, Hermione?" He asked. Why couldn't he be oblivious when she needed it?

"Just a little sore. I fell." She choked out, catching her breath. She knew nobody would notice how her hair was messed up; even her now-sleek hair had a mind of its own. Everyone has bad hair days, right?

They walked in silence to the Great Hall. Of the twelve people that had stayed back for the break, five had apparently, already eaten. Harry, the perfect gentleman he was, pulled out a chair for her, watching curiously how uncomfortably she sat.

They ate quietly until Harry felt the need to break the awkward silence. "No word from Ron?" He asked quietly.

"Please, Harry. It's Christmas Eve. Let's not do this today. I'll tell you what happened when I'm ready. Just not now, okay?"

"If that's what you want." He muttered. Hermione felt bad that she couldn't tell him, but she knew he would judge her. He would try not to, but he would definitely judge her. Ron was his best friend, after all. Her dirty little secret would definitely put a strain on their friendship, and she didn't want to lose Harry, too.

She didn't ask about Ginny, he didn't ask about Ron. They talked about happier things, things that didn't bother them quite so much. They talked about homework and music. They gossiped like old ladies (though Harry would never admit it). She taught him things about art and art appreciation. He taught her the basics of Quidditch. He brought firewhiskey, she brought vodka. They drank all night long, taking comfort in each other's warmth.

She woke at dawn, realizing they'd fallen asleep by the glowing embers of the fireplace. Harry slept soundly. She watched him for a minute, taking in a mini-epiphany: Friends like him were as essential to life as love was.

She loved him; there was no other way to put it. He would be the right guy for her, she knew that very well. She only wished she loved him the right way. It was the healthy choice, the right choice. Of course they'd have issues – what with Ron and Ginny – but they'd deal. They'd be perfect together. But life never works out that way, does it?

* * *

><p>It was only seven in the morning when Hermione was wandering the cold corridors of the castle. She didn't have a destination in mind, but her feet took her to <em>their <em>place. Their little niche where nothing existed but them. She took solace in the cold stone, in their green and gold comforter. She slid to the ground, wondering how it ever got so crazy.

She knew it was time to go when the sun filtered into the usually dark corner. She allowed herself one last glance, a deep breath. She folded the comforter neatly and put it in a corner. Fighting tears, she ran away from the place that was her heaven and her hell.

* * *

><p>At breakfast, Harry asked her again where she'd been. She told him that she was in the library. He knew she was lying, but he also knew to refrain from pushing her. She was grateful. Her mind flashed back to the epiphany she'd had that morning. She glanced at him remorsefully, wishing again that she was in love with him.<p>

Back in the common room, she once again forgot her woes as they exchanged presents. Christmas was the one muggle thing she loved more than anything else. Nothing could change Christmas, not the country she was in, not whether she was among muggles or wizards, not even what state of mind she was in. Christmas was the one permanence in her life.

"I've got so many bottles stashed away under my bed, it's enough to turn us both alcoholic." Harry told her happily.

"Turn? Harry, what world are you living in? We're dipsomaniacs already." She laughed.

"More alcoholic, then." He nodded, grinning.

"It's a date. I'll probably be in the library all day, though. I have to write a letter to my parents…" She trailed off.

He nodded understandingly. "I have Quidditch practice anyway."

"With whom?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Well, not practice exactly. More like a training session. You know the pair of third years that's stayed behind?"

"Lucy Simone and Will Preston." She nodded.

"Yeah, them. They asked if I could do a little work out with them today. I told them yes. So I'll see you tonight? Our little drinking spree."

"Cheers to that." She grinned.

* * *

><p>She hated lying to him. She knew that it was necessary, but she hated it anyway. She wouldn't be in the library. She'd be ecstatic and broken all at once, with the one she loved and hated.<p>

She did make her way to the library. She found solace in the quiet. She found peace and calm in the smell of parchment. The towering shelves cast dark shadows in the room, and she found herself falling in love with the darkness.

She studied a shelf carefully, trying to find a book she hadn't already read. Not long into the exercise, her reverie was broken.

"All I want for Christmas…is your body." A silken voice whispered in her ear. _That voice. _It made her weak. It made her melt. But it also broke her heart.

"Meet me in the room at the end of this corridor in ten minutes. The abandoned one. You know the password."

She sucked in a breath. Why did she love _him_? Why not someone else, _anyone _else? He didn't touch her as he passed her by. As if she wasn't worth the gesture. She bit her lip, hard. Her eyes moistened as her cheeks heated up.

"Bastard." She whispered.

* * *

><p>"Stercoreos." She said, her voice stronger than before. She would have given anything for that door to have remained shut, for that password to not have worked. She flinched as the door creaked open.<p>

"Etiam, vos sunt." _His _voice replied.

"You dirty bastard." Her voice broke. "Why are you so damn cruel?" She asked, fighting tears.

"You, my love. You made me this way." He said, his voice hard.

She knew couldn't do it anymore. She knew she shouldn't. Hot tears spilled onto her cheeks as she ran forward to hug him anyway.

"I hate you!" She cried, throwing her arms around his neck. .

"And I, you." He replied quietly, stroking her hair. The man's face was hard, as well. The pain in his eyes would not – could not – spill out.

They both knew each other inside out. The emotions in the room might as well have been written on the stone walls. There were no words, only raging passion. He was incredibly gentle as he brushed his lips against hers. Once, twice. She reached up, on the tiptoes, to kiss him better. They both had their eyes wide open. Cautious. They both knew very well exactly how much danger they posed to their hearts.

* * *

><p>That night, she became a whiskey person.<p>

Something about its warmth contrasted sharply with the sense of nothingness that it gave her. Yes, she was definitely a whiskey woman, she decided.

Harry raised a beautiful toast that she couldn't remember the next morning – their conversation became one long poem of toasts and cheers. She never told him her secret, but somehow he knew. And she'd been wrong – he didn't judge. The impending war had him so tired that anybody who didn't want to kill him, he didn't mind.

She didn't mind his selfishness, he didn't mind her sins.


	2. Chapter 2

The table at 12, Grimmauld Place had a perfectly circular stain on it; Hermione Granger put her glass of whiskey in the exact same spot every night. Three cubes of ice in one dram. At only eighteen, she had to admit that she was a bit of a connoisseur. She was toying with a glass of Teeling's Single Grain, twisting the glass around in place.

She didn't hear his footsteps, but she knew he was there.

"Mudblood." He whispered. There had never been such relief in those two syllables, as there was then.

"Broken jaw, two fingers and a long scar down my side. I'm alive, though." She said.

"Concussion, three ribs, and I just had my nose fixed." He replied. "I win."

"Yes, it was a particularly difficult mission for you, wasn't it?" She snapped. "You almost killed Percy, did you know?" She asked, looking up at him.

"The world wouldn't miss another Weasley." He muttered darkly. Hermione knew they took shots at him whenever they could.

"What right do _you _have to criticize human beings, Malfoy?" She smiled cruelly. "You stopped being one long ago, if I remember right."

He glared darkly. That was a secret he'd told her one night when they'd just been talking. He told her about how Voldemort had forced him to murder his own mother, and when he didn't, made her watch as he tore the life out of her. He had stopped being human that day. That had also been the day he had come to the Order, a broken boy, forced to be a man.

"Nice one, mudblood. Perhaps I should let your location slip the next time I go back to the manor." He said, staring.

"Oh, but that would defeat the point, wouldn't it? You'll never find anyone like me, Malfoy. You can't exist without me."

"And that's the root of all our problems, isn't it?" He half-smiled, pouring himself a dram. That night, there were two stains on the table.

* * *

><p>He couldn't bear to see his family dying around him, so he ran away.<p>

She was with Harry when they heard the news. She shouldn't care, not really. The battle at Hogwarts was won, but the war wasn't over. Voldemort wasn't dead, but they were _so close. _And Ron hadn't done a thing to help. He had been spending his days outside a brothel, spending the little money he had left on hookers and cigarettes.

They were going to try – again – to bring him home, when they found him sitting with his back against the dirty wall. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back, and somebody had tucked a cigarette in his front pocket, and written on the side – _he asked me to poison one. _

They had fought hard, and Hermione and Draco were the last ones back home, following the wizard that had apparated Harry back to the headquarters. He was badly injured, but they knew it would be only one battle, one last fight, before it was all over.

The pretense was that they needed a shower, but they just needed the company. Nobody questioned them as they walked very close together, almost touching, but not quite.

She shut the door behind them, and suddenly it was Hogwarts again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He breathed against her lips.

"Me, too." She kissed him back.

"You're not wrong. Blood doesn't matter. You're not wrong." He chanted whenever he came up for breath.

She gripped handfuls of his hair while he left fingerprints on her waist, trying to hold on to _this _reality.

Neither needed anything more – buttons popped and clothes tore as adrenaline pumped through both of them. His hands never stopped moving – pushing, probing, asking. They were still standing; he had her pinned against the wall, so she wrapped her legs around his waist and in one quick move, they were one. His sounds were animal as they moved together, furious.

He kept kissing her, biting her. She just raised her face to the ceiling, letting her tears fall off her chin and onto his broad chest. She couldn't bear to see his tears – she was begging him to be the strong one.

They finished together, stumbling backwards, falling onto the stripped down bed. He was still breathing hard when he told her, "I'm going to have to kill you tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know." Her heart beat faster. "Do it, okay? One of us has to live. One of us has to tell the world our story."

"I don't want to." His voice broke. "I...I'm..." He couldn't finish his sentence, but Hermione knew.

"Me, too." She sighed, wondering why the universe wouldn't let them be.

* * *

><p>"I love you." He whispered, knowing she'd heard him.<p>

Their wands lay discarded, lost in the battle. It was just them in this corner. He had her pinned against a wall, and she kicked with all her might, but she wasn't strong enough. He held a knife against her stomach, praying for the strength to do it. Quick as a cobra, she whipped out a dagger of her own, twisting it into his side. Shocked, his knife arm jerked, and they both fell backwards in a bloody, messy embrace.

* * *

><p>Hermione Granger was rich.<p>

Once the war ended, she got richer and richer – the biographies, the guest lectures, and the public appearances alone set up a college fund for the great grandchildren she'd never have. She took up jobs with the ministry, projects here and there. She liked to vary her jobs – she'd tried her hand at desk jobs and gotten utterly bored. She tried adventures like Charlie's – dragons and other monsters – and realized adventure no longer held her attention. At twenty five, Hermione had seen most of the world, and nothing fascinated her.

Hermione Granger realized then, that the day she had killed Draco Malfoy, was the day she stopped being a human being.

The aftermath of the war had not been kind to the wizarding world. Racism was all but eradicated, but people were still grieving for their losses. The heroes put on a brave face for as long as people needed them to, and then hid. Nobody blamed them – they had seen too much, and they'd been far too young.

Hermione, for her part, bought a penthouse in Mayfair. It was appropriate that her furnishings were green and gold. The oak table in her dining room, on one corner, had one dark brown ring.

She rarely left the comfort of her city home, reveling in the quiet company of her bookshelf and whiskey-rack. The grey sky was her companion, and the city beneath her gave her a sense of reality. There was no magic – at least not the shimmery golden kind she'd imagined as a little girl. The city sapped the glitter out of her life – she liked the grey of concrete. She liked grey.

She apparated back and forth between her house and Harry's country house. It was there that she allowed herself the luxury of fresh air. She swung wildly between dead inside and loving so hard that she wished she were dead. They never spoke of it, but he knew. She knew that he knew about her love for a certain blonde man, and she was almost certain he knew of her sin.

And that was why she loved Harry Potter – he was her comfort. She remembered a quote by Lord Byron, "There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion." He was like rum for her – going down slow and smooth, bringing soft sleep and happy dullness. The taste remained long after it was gone, and the memory was a friend.

Hermione Granger longed for whiskey.


	3. Chapter 3

Years later, she sat at an upscale pub with Harry Potter, his face unshaven and a rum stain on his only white shirt. He hadn't seen the light of day for many months – the final battle with Voldemort had tired him out. He had lost everyone to the war, to the Death Eaters' stupid bigotry. He wondered what it was all really worth, in the end.

She grabbed his face with both hands, looking straight into his eyes – they were no longer sunken because she'd been forcing him to eat. "Go home, Harry." She said, not unkindly.

"I can't do this, Hermione." He sighed, tired.

"Oh, but you can. You're the-boy-who-lived. You can survive anything." She smiled back sadly. She kissed his cheek, and watched him stumble out. She knew he'd reach home safely; he had promised her he wouldn't die. He didn't live far – he had an apartment in the city, too.

All the girls that had been eyeing him now turned away, she noticed. _This was a bad idea. We're not ready. We'll never be ready. _

She hadn't started drinking yet, she had just wanted Harry to step out of his house and see the world again. She was just so tired of fixing him, and fixing herself. The bartender was a skinny blond boy – eighteen, maybe nineteen. Hermione laughed out loud. When had eighteen become so young? That was her, not so long ago. She didn't feel twenty-five, though.

He came up to her, pouring her a dram of Elijah Craig. She was a regular – she found that men found their inner Oscar Wilde when whiskey was involved, and she'd been looking for a challenging conversation. She felt the vanilla and black pepper go down her throat easily, giving her a faded flashback of a rush only he'd been able to give her. His words, his subtly _good _deeds, his fears, his regrets, his simple joys, his tastes…Hermione Granger could not forget the complex mix of _everything _that Draco Malfoy was. His smirk, the last lingering image she had of him, stayed like the spearmint finish of her whiskey.

"Another?" She asked the bartender. He reached for a glass.

"Surprise me." She smiled at him. He had sharp features.

She was going to get drunk, she realized. In drunkenness, maybe she'd let out some of these clawing emotions. She could only hope.

A smoky Laphroaig this time. She appreciated his taste, the boy knew her well. A warm, sweet McClellan next. The sweet smoke reminded her of Draco. Hermione lost track after the fruit-and-smoke Lagavulin, and just kept drinking.

It had been maybe three hours since she had started drinking, when she decided this was as drunk as she was going to get. She fell into a tilt-shifted, mindless vortex of bright colors and singular sounds. The boy across the bar, he seemed to morph. His hair was platinum blond, and his smile was a curious mix of mocking and indulgent. She looked up at his eyes, though, and they were blue. A dark, beautiful blue. Nothing like the grey she sought.

He was saying something to her. She saw his mouth move, but she couldn't bother to listen to him speak.

"Shut up!" She screamed, throwing her rich gold drink straight into his face. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! Your eyes are all wrong!" She sobbed. She emptied the contents of her purse onto the counter and ran to the bathrooms. Thankfully they were empty, she apparated safely back home. Hermione Granger may be drunk out of her mind, but she was still the brightest witch of her age.

* * *

><p>It was the war that had rendered her incapable of having children. She hated the universe for taking away the one thing that could have been her refuge - she needed a part of Draco today, more than usual.<p>

Her head was spinning, but she still staggered to her whiskey shelf and pulled out a brown bottle. She didn't even bother - she just sat down there in an inelegant, messy pile of emotions, and drank straight from the bottle. The taste never registered.

Even liquid whiskey didn't help anymore - Hermione needed the real thing.

* * *

><p>It had been a week since her twenty-eighth birthday when she went back to that pub.<p>

The boy across the bar smiled tentatively at her; he didn't say a word. She smiled back apologetically when he handed her a dram of what smelled like their finest.

"Boy!" She called once he was done with his other customers. He didn't turn. _There was something familiar about him. _

"Barkeep!" She said, a little louder. He smiled back this time, walking towards her slowly. His gaze dropped towards her drink, making sure it was empty before he approached her any further. _She had to have known him from Hogwarts. _

"Tell me your name, barkeep." Hermione Granger commanded softly.

"Mal."

Her breath caught. "Mal. Hello." She said, a little stiff.

He waited.

"Do you know of a place called Hogwarts, Mal?" She asked him. A raging impulse had caught a hold of Hermione's soul, and she couldn't stop.

"Er...no. Ahem. Uh...why?" He asked. _  
><em>

_Liar. _

"Hermione. Granger." She enunciated slowly. Understanding dawned on the barkeeper's face as he brushed a lock of black hair from his eyes. _That hair. That face._

"So, Mal." She said, forcing herself to spit out the single syllable. "Tell me. What family do you come from? Are you muggleborn, by any chance? Half blooded?" His eyes were grey today. _That grey. _

"Not here." He begged. "My shift gets over in forty minutes. I'll talk to you then." He said. She waited forty minutes, and lost count of the number of glasses she'd been through. She was stumbling by the time he helped her into a quiet booth in the back.

"I won't tell you my name." He said firmly.

"It's okay. I was in love with a death eater." She mumbled. "You could be Voldemort's love child for all I care."

"I go by Mal - I'm a squib. Well...a metamorphmagus who can't do much else." He laughed without humor. "A distant cousin of a noble house. They never let anything less than perfect last very long at the Manor." She couldn't breathe. This was it. _  
><em>

"I need some way to remember him, Mal. Bring me something, I'm begging. A blanket, a picture, a memory. Give me something." She sobbed, her tears falling into her drink. She slurred, forgetting herself. _Why couldn't she stop speaking?_

"Maybe you need a change of drink?" He suggested awkwardly, rising.

"Sit!" She snarled. "I only drink rum and whiskey." She smiled dryly. "And today isn't a rum day."

"Oh...kay?" He said, clearly confused.

"Mal. I was in love with Draco Malfoy, and I killed him. I need you to help here." 

He looked taken aback. "I need two minutes, Ms. Granger. Please." He said, whipping out a mobile phone. She wasn't fond of those.

"Mate, hi. I...need you to come in. No, no I don't _care _if you haven't shaved in a fortnight, this is more important than your prepubescent stubble! Ah...just, wear something clean." Mal left, then. Hermione followed him with her eyes as he went to the back door to open it for a handsome stranger.

Platinum blond hair and eyes downcast. He went straight to the bar and picked up a Lagavulin. _Whiskey. _

Hermione Granger set her glass down, allowing the condensation to dribble onto the wood. A perfect circle. Her hope.

As Mal brought the stranger closer, her heart beat faster. She thought she heard the word 'catatonic'.

"Not catatonic." A soft voice said. "Drunk. She's drunk on misery."

She looked up to stare straight into a pair of soft grey eyes. The hair was right. The eyes were right. The face was right.

She couldn't believe it. She choked on a sob and threw her drink into his face, for the second time in about eight months.

"_You're a lie! I killed you." _She cried.


End file.
